Day Trips to Niagara Falls

Given the current economic situation, many teachers in the Toronto area (or Southern Ontario) who normally plan overnight tours for their students to places like Ottawa and Quebec City are considering a shorter day trip instead - usually to Niagara Falls.

Niagara Falls offers both historical sites like Fort George, natural beauty like the falls themselves, and attractions that are just pain fun like the amusements on Clifton Hill.

However, many teachers think that since Niagara Falls is so close (and it's only a day trip) that the cost would be far less than an overnight trip. It is less expensive, but the price when all of the activities and costs are tallied is often a surprise. The reason for the higher than expected cost is a combination of 3 factors. 

1. The cost of a motor coach for a day
   
2. The high cost of the attractions
   
3. The margin added by the tour company to turn a profit
   

The Bus

The total cost to charter a bus for a day is fixed, and it does not change based on the number of passengers. The less students you have going on the trip, the more each of them has to pay to cover the cost of the bus. Buses can charter for more than $1000/day depending on the time of year, so there is a big difference in price if you have 50 students ($20 each) or 25 students ($40 each).

The Attractions

There are some free activities like the floral clock, viewing Niagara Falls, and visiting Niagara-on-the-Lake, but many of the really cool things to do cost a bit of money. Most of the fun houses and museums on Clifton Hill cost more than $10. A Fun Pass is $30 and includes several attractions. Adding a couple hours worth of attractions can cost you anywhere from $30 - $60!

The Margin Added

Tour companies have to pay their staff and cover their costs, so they add to their cost to run the trip. This goes for any service and should not come as a surprise. Where your companies usually save on their own costs is booking hotel rooms. For the average scool trip more than a dozen rooms have to be booked, and most companies use the same hotels regularly, entitling them to room rates far better than what would be available to the regular guests. To the client, a $600 trip with a tour company to New York City with transportation, guideed tours, and 3 mights accommodation seems like a good price (considering hotels start at $120/night in the area) but the company is getting a far better rate on hotel rooms than would be available to the regular guests. With day trips, you remove the margin made on hotels, so it is added to the cost of the bus and attractions, making the trip seem like it is less of a bargin.

Planning any tour is time-intensive, and Niagara Falls day trips don't make tour companies much money for the amount of work that goes into planning them - almost as much as a multi-day tour. I know of several that have refused to do them in the past for this very reason. The ones that do offer Niagara trips, do so in the hope that it will pay off later when the school is able to book longer trips that are more profitable and loved their Niagara experience with them. It's all about client retention.

The Bottom Line

With trips to Niagara Falls, you could get away with spending about $60 for a bare-bones trip with nothing included but transportation and a tour leader, but you should expect to pay about $100 for something including a meal, a tour leader and an attraction or two. While that might seem like a lot for a day trip, with the right tour company providing an excellent tour leader, $100 could be the best value for a year-end trip. You just have to find a company that is willing to put it together for you!

More Tips on Planning Tours to Ottawa

When it comes to planning a trip to Ottawa, there are a few things to bear in mind.

 

Parliament Hill - Guided Centre Block tours are free of charge, but a $100 fee is charged if you miss your scheduled tour. Tours in June are sold out months in advance. If you are travelling in June and book after December do not expect availability. An alternate activity in Centre Block you do not need reservations for is a visit to the top of the Peace Tower. If tours are sold out, this is a way for the students to glimpse the interior and get a bird's eye view of Parliament Hill. An early morning visit can beat the line-ups which are especially long later in the day.

 

The Supreme Court of Canada - Like the Centre Block tours, tours in June are snatched up quickly. If this visit is a priority, please inform your tour operator. The mock trial done by a law student is a lot of fun for the students.

 

Rideau Hall - The home of Canada's Governor General (second only to the Queen in power) can be an interesting place to visit, but tours of the house interior can be cancelled with little notice and substituted for a grounds tour. Although pretty, the grounds and the house itself do not rate very high with younger students who require more stimulating activity. Yawns and foot-dragging is common on tours of the grounds in the heat of late June.  

 

The Bank of Canada Currency Museum - Not to be confused with the Royal Canadian Mint (the Mint makes coins, the Bank of Canada prints bills) this museum offers some interesting hands-on workshops dealing with counterfeit money and the strange history of currency and what has been used for money throughout history. How do you make change for a skull? How many goats can you buy for 100 shells?

 

Aboriginal Experiences - Located on an island in the Ottawa River between the Museum of Civilization and the Canadian War Museum, this attraction offers programs varying in cost and duration. Options range from a 45 minute tour of the site to a full 5-hour experience including a visit to the Canadian Museum of Civilization (reached by canoe) and an authentic aboriginal barbeque lunch or dinner. Dance demonstrations, storytelling, crafts and more can make this a memorable place to visit. If you are going to schedule this into your itinerary, tell your tour company what kind of experience you would like your students to have.

 

Walking tour of downtown Ottawa - Tour companies either have their own staff trained to conduct walking tours, or will hire a local company to lead the tour. No visit to Ottawa should do without this option, since the tour will cover the Rideau Canal and its significance in birth of Canada's capital city, the National War Memorial, Parliament Hill, the Byward Market, and much more. Walking tours can range in time from 1 hour (for a rushed tour lacking much substance and missing many sights) to a 3-hour tour covering everything of interest you'd want to see. Tour companies that provide their own trained tour leaders put walking tours in to fill a gap between scheduled activities like meals and museum visits. Having the flexibility to adjust the time of the walking tour around (in the event of bad weather) or to do it bit by bit throughout the whole trip to fill time between inflexible booking times (at places like Parliament Hill or the Supreme Court) can make your tour flow even more smoothly. As a tour leader the walking tour is my favourite part of the trip since it's my prime time to teach, entertain, and engage the students.

 

Don't try to squeeze too much into a tour. Having worked in the industry for years, I have seen all kinds of itineraries. The best-planned trips are those that were booked early, have no more than two events planned before noon (i.e. breakfast at a restaurant, and a museum visit), lunch followed by two more events, dinner, and an evening activity. I have also found that trips that take place before May are easier to plan, easier to execute, and more relaxing for everyone since there is less demand on the attractions and restaurants, no crowds, and greater flexibility on the fly. A delay in getting to Ottawa in June can mean missing an activity with little to no chance of being able to reschedule it, but delay in getting to Ottawa in April means tweaking the itinerary here and there with some minor re-scheduling. 

Happy travels!

 

Tips for Visiting Ottawa

Last year I was asked by Matt Poe, the editor of Teach & Travel Magazine (the official publication of SYTA) to give him a few tips and pointers for an article he was writing on student tours visiting the Canadian capital of Ottawa, Ontario. I gave him a  run-down of the museums and attractions that I thought were "must-sees" and what to consider doing with your time there. This is what I wrote:

I've been leading student tours all over North America for more than a decade now, and Ottawa is still my favourite city to tour. Being a proud Canadian might have something to do with that but I think Ottawa is worth the trip for its world-class museums, galleries, and beautiful scenery. Ottawa is home to several museums that I would consider must-sees for any student group visiting Ottawa. I've been to some of the greatest museums in the world (London, Paris, New York, Washington, Tokyo) and I can honestly say that the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and the recently built Canadian War Museum rank with the best of them.

 

National Gallery of Canada

For visits to the National Gallery of Canada with student groups having an experienced tour guide along is a must, since most students are unaquainted with the "language" of fine art, will spend no more than 3 seconds looking at any particular piece, and not get anything out of their visit. The museum guides will take the students to see a handful of works, engage them in a discussion about what they see and show them some things they didn't see at first glance. An experience like this will give the students a greater appreciation and understanding of art than would a whirlwind orientation walk or an aimless unguided stroll through the entire gallery. A highlight to request on a tour would be to view the controversial painting "Voice of Fire" acquired by the gallery for $1.8 million in 1989 - a price many Canadians felt was far to high for something they felt "a 5 year old kid could paint". Without a guide to talk the students through the proper viewing technique, the painting is unexceptional except for its size. With a guide and an open mind, however, it is a stunning example of modern art and a visual marvel. With an added hands-on Discovery Visit option or an art workshop with a professional artist in one of the studios the students will leave the gallery wanting to return again someday.

Canadian Museum of Civilization 

The Canadian Museum of Civilization is a masterpiece of architecture and museum design in addition to housing some of the most compelling permanent and temporary exhibits on the planet. At the heart of the museum is the Grand Hall, a showcase of aboriginal culture and artifacts from the Pacific Coast of Canada with full-scale replicas of first nation houses, the largest indoor colleciton of totem poles in the world, masks, art, and all kinds of artifacts. An experienced tour leader or museum guide can explain the importance of the potlatch ceremony to native culture and the stories behind the majestic totem poles. The third floor of the museum houses the Canada Hall in which visitors begin their exploration on the east coast of Canada with the Vikings, and continue their journey westward across the country and forward in time as the exhibits progress through the centuries and decades that saw Canada settled by people from around the world. The students can walk through a street in 18th century New France, into a prairie church, past a life-sized oil rig, and through a passenger lounge in Vancouver International Airport. The attention to detail is incredible. This particuar exhibit was ten years in the making and seeing students' jaws drop when they enter is priceless. Meeting some of the staff playing period characters stationed occassionally throughout the exhibit is a wonderful bonus and an excellent opportunity for the students to ask questions about the past.

Canadian War Museum 

It serves to preserve, memorialize, and educate, and it couldn't be done better at the Canadian War Museum. As unpleasant as anything in our history, war has nonetheless helped shape and define our modern world. The scope of this museum is massive, covering conflict on the North American continent from the very first archaeological evidence of violence thousands of years ago, through the World Wars, the Cold War, and concluding with warfare and terrorism in the 21st century. Each artifact was carefully selected because there is a story behind it that will help the students relate to those people whose lives were changed by war, whether they were soldiers on the battlefield or civilians worrying and waiting for them back home. This museum presents its exhibits with honesty and without glorification. It is a sombre place and frequented often by veterens who can share their stories with interested students - a learning opportunity that is becoming rarer each day. For student visits to this museum, it is advisable to include one of the superb museum educational programs for a hands-on element that will make for a more unique and engaging visit.

Hands-on Learning 

Most tour companies allow between an hour and a half to two hours for each museum visit, which may seem like not enough time for an adult visitor, but can seem like an eternity to an uninterested student. In order to get the most out of a museum visit, requesting an educational program with a hands-on component is worth the added expense (usually less than $10/student) and is something that is unavailable to casual visitors thereby making their trip even more unique. An added educational program will add approximately another hour to a visit. 

Add More Time

For teachers planning to add an educational program to their museum visit, bear in mind that spaces for such programs are limited, and tend to fill quickly. As a result they can be more difficult to schedule than unguided visits (or even simple guided tours) so it is important to be flexible with the rest of your tour itinerary. If you make one or two museum educational programs the priority when booking (and book as early as possible) and are willing to be flexible with the rest of your tour arrangements in order to accomodate the program availablity, you will give your students a trip that will be unlike any they've ever had.

 

Destinations Other Than Big Cities

It's tough for any destination to compete with the likes of New York City, Washington DC, Boston, Chicago, and Orlando in the USA, or Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City in Canada. Every country has its big draws for student groups. At many of the travel trade shows I've been to as a rep for a tour company, I was approached by members of tourism bureaus and associations from small cities, or regions that just don't have much of a draw for school tour groups outside of locals on day trips.  

When you are a teacher planning a trip that will have to be appealing enough to the students to have them (or their parents) pay for it and with enough educational value to get it approved, it's a hard sell to get a trip off the ground that is not one of the exciting and glamorous big cities.  

Even if a teacher were to plan a trip to (what the students consider) a less "exciting" destination, they could be drawing from (and therefore competing for) the same pool of students as another teacher in another department running an even more exciting trip.  

Perhaps readers could share ideas for destinations that offer a bigger bang for the buck than the big cities, and what kind of experience that place can offer that can't be had anywhere else. To contribute to the conversation, join us on facebook!

Student Peanut Allergies

When I first started leading school groups in the mid 90s, it was unlikley that any of the studentsin my tour group would have a food allergy. I noticed however, that as time wore on and the years went by, that more and more kids had food (especially nut) allergies listed on their medical forms. Now, it is quite common for a group of students to travel that includes someone with a nut allergy. The vast majority are minor allergies, and the fact that many more kids are being tested for allergies (of all kinds) today than ever before is the cause of this remarkable increase. 

As an attentive and safety-minded tour guide, I've taken the time to learn a little about nut allergies, and found some interesting articles about the sudden apparent increase in them among the population.

Nut Allergies 101...

What is an allergic reaction?

An allergic reaction is the body's defense to what it deems to be an "invader". It could be pollen, insect venom (as it is with bee stings), bacteria, fungus, or anything else. An "allergen" is an otherwise harmless substance that triggers a reaction. One of the results of an allergic reaction is the release of hormones and chemicals referred to as "mediators" which stimulate the production of more white blood cells and . Histamine is probably the most commonly known mediator.

How can allergic reactions harm or kill you?

The release of mediators during an extreme reaction by someone who is hypersensitive to the allergen can cause a couple of scary things to happen (aka anaphylaxis) The first is swelling of the throat and tongue which obviously makes it hard to breathe. The second is shock, which results from severe dialation of large blood vessels. The same amount of blood in more available space makes it harder for it to be pumped around, and this can result in unconsciousness, or even cardiac arrest. 

How big is the risk?

Each year in the USA, of the approximate 3.3 million who have nut allergies, about 150 people die from an allergic reaction. 150 seems like a lot, but when you consider that more than 3000 drown, more than 17,000 fall to their deaths, and more than 40,000 are killed in car wrecks each year in America, the peanut looks pretty harmless.

Play it safe, but don't overreact

I am all for people with allergies avoiding what they are allergic to, but we have to be careful about creating unnecessary anxiety and fear in children. Here is an article from TIME about just that - an overreaction to allergy fears. Creating a nut-free pre-school is fine, since toddlers always have their hands in their mouths. Evacuating a school bus because a loose peanut was spotted on the floor is a little much. My favourite quote in the article was from Dr. Robert Wood, chief of the Pediatric Allergy and Immunology department at Johns Hopkins Children's Center who said, "It's an unfortunate situation if a family with an inaccurate perception of the allergy leads a child to believe that a Snickers bar from 50 feet away is a lethal weapon."

A Word to Teachers

Please be diligent about getting the right medical and allergy information to your tour company prior to the trip so they can allert the tour guide and the restaurants. 

A Word to Tour Guides

Read up on allergies, or if possible get trained to recognize and deal with a student going into anaphylactic shock. That sort of thing is covered in standard first aid courses. 

A Word to Restaurants

Please take steps to eliminate or reduce visiting students' contact with nuts or nut products.The risk of anything happening is low, but better to quietly avoid having to deal with an issue like that than face it head on. Most comply, but every now and then I run into a restaurant that says they don't serve nuts, but then they put peanut butter out on the table at breakfast.

"Off-Season" Travel

There are many advantages to avoiding travel during peak periods. For most educational (i.e. school organized) trips, they usually occur during the school year, thereby avoiding the peak summer months for tourists in the northern hemisphere and most groups wouldn't even consider the Christmas/New Year holiday. 

What peak travel is to educational groups

What most educational travel pros refer to as "peak travel" time is over spring break (aka March Break, Reading Week) and the months of May and June. Spring break is popular for high school teachers that want to plan overseas trips that would last more than a week so they can cut down on the amount of classes the students would miss. May and June are very popular for elementary or middle schools planning shorter trips because for many students, it is a celebration of a successful school year. Many teachers have found that the students brains switch into summer mode once the trip is over and don't take much to learning anymore. Traveling prior to May deprives teachers of a behaviour management tool ("flunk another test and you're off the trip!") as well as a reward.

Advantages of traveling off-peak

• Less crowded. You won't be fighting for limited tour slots at popular student attractions. Washington DC is overrun with student groups in May and June, and tours inside Canada's Parliament buildings or Supreme Court (that includes a mock trial) are near impossible to get. 

• Better tour guide. Your tour leader or guide is more likely to be one of the more experienced the company has. Most tour companies hire a small army of guides to keep up with the demand starting in May. As a result, you might have someone not fully trained (especially in the last weeks of the school year where demand is REALLY high), or as well trained as a senior guide employed to do trips year-round. Tour companies that provide guide services (just like airlines, hotels, and other suppliers) experience overbooking problems from time to time.

• Better bus. You are more likely to get a good motor coach. Coach companies are like the other suppliers when it comes to supply and demand. If the tour company works with large coach companies most of the time, during the peak months, the coach company might farm out work to smaller companies. Since they don't want to lose money, or make the most money from the deal, they could hire buses from other companies that don't have equipment that is as nice. It does not happen often, but it happens - I've guided trips that has happened to. 

• Better driver. You are more likley to get a great coach driver. From May - August it's "all hands on deck" for the bus comnpanies and many new drivers are trained in the spring to handle the spike in business over the warmer months.

• Save money. You can save quite a bit of money by traveling off peak. Many tour companies offer incentives like lower prices for booking trips departing before May 1st and a lot of hotels up their prices in the spring because the rooms are in demand. many hotels book solid starting in May.
  

A Word to Teachers 

Book your trips as early as you can, and try to avoid the last weeks of June most of all. If you are looking to book now for those weeks, see what your tour company rep says to you when you suggest moving the trip to late April. If things have not been booked or confirmed, they'll probably thank you. I know I did when I managed school accounts. If you absolutely must travel during the peak weeks, understand that unless you booked realy early, the tour company has to work with time slots for certain attractions that are limited in availability and might only be available during inconvenient times (like 12 noon or 5-6pm). I once had a tour with a CRAZY itinerary. We drove back and forth across the city and had to fight rush hour traffic each day to get around. I learned later the group had booked last-minute for the trip in June and this was the very best possible itinerary available based on what they wanted to do and the times available to them.

Packing List - Tour Guides

It's not really a packing list per se - you should already know what essentials to bring with you. What I've done here is list some things tour guides might want to pack to help them do their job even better. 

• A good daypack is essential for keeping your supplies and kit organized. A cheap bag is prone to ripping and a source of back pain. Function over form and quality over style every time. Make sure your bag has padded shoulder straps, waist and sternum straps to disperse the weight of the pack across your chest and onto your hips rather than onto only your shoulders. My favourite bag of all time right now is a Deuter Futura 28, which I bought at Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) in Toronto. For a tour guide, a great pack is second in importance only to comfortable walking shoes where gear is concerned.

• A quality clipboard is also a no-brainer for me, but I know a lot of guides that don't use one. I keep my itinerary, passenger list, and other papers I need to access again and again in it. It goes back into the pack when I'm not using it. I've seen some tour guides carry umbrellas or flags. You can use the clipboard instead. Don't get the cheapest, they won't last.

• Glow sticks help your group find you when meeting up at night. I do trips to the winter Carnaval in Quebec City most years and after the night parade, the glowsticks make it really easy for the students (and adults) to find me before we make our way to meet the bus. They also make good prizes for the students when the group has some kind of dance or evening boat cruise on their itinerary.

• Blank cue cards, (also known as "recipe cards" from the days when recipes were hand written and passed down from generaiton to generation) are great for jotting down notes, or summarizing your itinerary so it's all there at a glance. If you are going someplace new, having some cheat notes handy can make you look like a pro as long as - and this is important - you do not have the cue cards out in front of your group while you are talking. While training some tour guides I saw one from another company standing at the Canadian National War Memorial in Ottawa reading facts to their group off their clipboard. I pointed it out to my team and told them if I ever saw one of them do that I would run over and drop kick the clipboard or cue cards out of their hands. SO unprofessional!

• A portable GPS that I can lend to the motor coach driver if he doesn't have one... and use myself when I need to. On the coach you want to be able to concentrate on the group and a GPS like one made by Garmin or Tom Tom is something that will help inexperienced drivers immensely with getting your group to dinner at that out-of-the-way student-friendly restaurant with the big parking lot for the bus. Useful indeed unless you are someplace like Boston or Quebec City where the GPS could insist on sending the bus down streets too narrow for it to navigate or on roads with underpasses too low to clear without shearing the roof off. Make sure the driver knows to trust their own judgement and pay attention to signs first instead of trusting the GPS implicitly. It really is useful though, and most drivers carry their own. I've used a GPS on trips to find out when the next highway rest stop is, or estimate a time of arrival back home so parents can be told when to pick up little Johnny or Sally at the school.

• A headlamp like the kind made by Petzl. You might have to read or look at something in low light while walking or riding on a bus. A headlamp loses major points for dorkiness until you actually see it in use. Then it only loses a few points for dorkiness but you can see what you need to see... hands free!

• A cell phone is also a no-brainer, but I've had to do trips without one (in Europe a couple of years ago, and for several years in the 90s before they became common). I recommend never doing a trip without one now - EVER. The clients expect you to have one and you look like a tool if they wonder why you don't use it in situations that certainly require a phone call. Just don't walk around witha  bluetooth headset stuck in your ear. Your client should hardly ever see your phone or you using it. Phone calls are best done "behind the scenes" to make magic happen. "How did the driver know we would be on this street corner?" Magic, baby!

• DVDs that have general appeal and are set in your group's destination. Later posts will feature suggested movies and DVDs based on destination.

• An extra pair of socks for each day on tour. Trust me! Midway through the day, or at the end of a long stretch of walking and talking, putting on a fresh pair of quality breathable socks is a little slice of heaven for your feet. Take care of your feet. Spend a bit of money on good socks that will keep your feet dry by wicking moisture away. I love Smartwool socks. The last forever and minimize sweat on your skin. Sweat creates friction which causes blisters and stink, and you don't want either.

• Stainless steel or aluminum water bottle so you never ever, ever buy bottled water again. Bottled water is evil. The bottles are terrible for the environment and the water is less regulated and therefore no safer or healthier than tap water. You should encourage your group to get bottles of their own (that they love and like to drink from) and always drink tap water (it's free!) unless the tap water is unsafe in that country or region. I love my new Laken Futura 0.75ml. Hey, it's got the same name as my pack! Sweet.

• A really good pocket map is incredibly useful. My pocket maps have helped lost tourists (not in my group) in New York City and Toronto understand my directions better, and has been incredibly useful when dealing with motor coach drivers. Even if you know the city like the back of your hand, there are still many uses for a great map. I really like the Streetwise laminated maps. Paper just doesn't last and bigger maps can't be read in a subtle way no matter how you fold them.

• GLO (Games of Low Organization) are simple and fun activities or games that can be learned by a group in a very short period of time (think tag, or duck duck goose) and can be used to energize the group, entertain them while "killing time" (which I call "taking advantage of bonus time") or to inject some fun into your tour. Most simple camp games serve the purpose. I have my favourites, which will be in a future post. See if you can come up with a twist of your own to tie the game into your tour and be sure to tell me about it!
  

That's my list off the top of my head. Please feel free to write me with your own suggestions or links to products or sites you think can help tour guides be better prepared. Contribute to the discussion on facebook!